Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiari Soleat

Now the things which among us are accounted necessary and valuable and genuine real goods are these; to eat, to drink, to be clothed in various colours and fashions; by means of the faculty of sight, to be delighted with pleasant sights; by means of one’s faculty of hearing to be delighted with melodies of all sorts of sounds; to be gratified through our nostrils with fragrant exhalations of odours; to indulge in all the pleasures of the belly and of the parts adjacent to the belly to satiety; not to be indifferent to the acquisition of silver and gold; to be invested with honours and post of authority, and all other things which may tend to man’s reputation; but as for prudence, or fortitude, or justice, austere dispositions which only make life laborious, those we pass by, and if we are forced to admit them into one calculation we must do so, not as perfect goods in themselves, but only as efficients of good.

Do you therefore, O ridiculous man, affirm that if you are